Addressing Ireland's gender brain drain: talented employees exit workforce for pregnancy or to seek fertility treatment

Fembition wants to stop the “flight risk” among staff wanting to get pregnant and why they may want to leave if they pursue that choice.

ALISON CLARKE built up a career over 10 years in the wealth management space, working with
international firms such as Merrill Lynch and Julius Baer, but in 2016 she walked away from her corporate life for the same reasons that many other women have left their professions. She wanted to have a baby.

Ms Clarke excelled at her job. She became a client service officer at Merrill Lynch before moving to Julius Baer where she was eventually appointed associate director.

“The investment market space is naturally quite dynamic and fast-moving,” she said.

However, she found that corporate life was not dynamic enough to provide a suitable environment to go through a fertility journey.

This year, she founded Fembition, a company that provides analytics, networking, and peer guidance on employee pregnancy and fertility for both companies and individuals. It provides firms with employee metrics that analyse the “flight risk” among staff wanting to get pregnant and why they may want to leave if they pursue that choice.

Alison Clarke, CEO, Fembition. "It’s so unnecessary if the right supports are put in place in the workplace from the outset and it was looked at from a cultural perspective." Picture: Brian Farrell

“I was trying for quite a while and nothing was happening,” she said. “I was going through exploratory tests and procedures and then ended up going down to fertility treatment route,” said Ms Clarke.

While the job did not give her any reason to conceal her pregnancy, it also did not give her any reason to speak openly about it. Fertility was not a common conversation in the workplace.

“I suppose I was aware, in the back of my mind that the glass ceiling was there and I didn’t want to disclose anything. I remember even getting the Luas into town for 7am scans, then trying to get back to the office and second-guessing what everyone else is thinking.

“If you’re a woman who is ambitious and high achieving when you’re disclosing something that some might perceive as a weakness, you don’t want that pity party, and you don’t want to feel the vulnerability.”

The stress of going through a challenging fertility process while also trying to deliver the same productivity output as other employees ended up becoming “quite isolating” for her.

“I think when you’re in that position where you’re in that kind of mode on a regular basis, you don’t even identify that you’re in a stressed state,” she said. “But, inherently, I knew that the best way I could give myself the best treatment was to resign.”

“So I left and that was the end of my corporate career.”

However, this led to Ms Clarke realising there was a gap in the market for a company that would help support pregnant employees or those on fertility treatments, preventing them from quitting their jobs and leading to less female representation in companies.

“If women are continuously walking out at the rate they are it’s just such a talent waste. I call it the gender brain drain,” said Ms Clarke.

“It’s so unnecessary if the right supports are put in place in the workplace from the outset and it was looked at from a cultural perspective.”

Ms Clarke launched Fembition in January, the femtech company that provides analytics, networking, and peer guidance around employee pregnancy and fertility for both companies and individuals.

“Women walk out of their career because of fertility problems, and it doesn’t get captured by employers because it doesn’t come up in exit interviews,” said Ms Clarke.

British-based charity Pregnant then Screwed released a survey last month showing one in four women who do disclose that they’re experiencing fertility issues get discriminated against afterwards. Ms Clarke believes similar situations are happening in Ireland.

“It’s unfortunately very common for a lot of women, they feel that their only option is to walk out,” she said.

Fembition is currently being used by two pilot clients, a financial services company and a law firm. Ms Clarke is positive there is significant room for growth in this area. Recent Central Bank of Ireland figures show that 43% of board-level applications in the banking sector were women last year, up from 29% in 2021.

Ms Clarke runs the company out of the Innovation Centre in Sligo and has two others working with her.

Just over €20,000 has been injected into the company so far through self-investment and funding through Enterprise Ireland.

Before setting up Fembition, Ms Clarke worked for a wellness company that helped flesh out her idea for her FemTech firm, which provides services to individual clients, including how to manage stress levels while trying to get pregnant.

The 38-year-old is optimistic about the possibilities around future clients including in the healthcare space and partnerships in the coming years with fertility clinics.